In order to become more flexible, the public sector has opened the way to new principles inspired by the private sector: the marketisation of services (Fairbrother et Poynter, 2001). Our research aims to better understand the factors which affect the participation of trade unions when marketisation is introduced in the delivery of local government services. To do so, we have decided to compare local government case studies in two different countries, Québec City and Edinburgh in Scotland, to help us better understand the interactions between local and national influences. Our hypothesis is that local trade union power resources and the employer’s strategy will influence trade union participation in the management of local government service delivery, regardless of the national context.
The main findings of our research suggest that power resources and employer stategy both directly affect local trade union involvement in the management of local government service delivery. While power resources help to bolster the trade union’s power, the employer strategy can either encourage or impare trade union participation. Our results also raised differences relating to the national contexts of the UK and Québec which affected local trade union participation : « Best Value » legislation in the UK and « Code du Travail » legislation which frame collective agreements and industrial relations in Québec. We consider that future research on the subject is necessary in order to verify the current models on national industrial relations and to develop new comparative theories.